Empress seemed to be thoroughly enjoying the awkward interaction unfolding between Alyssa and Aaron.

One of them was reeling from the terror of a life she had been certain had ended the moment the spatial shift swallowed her whole, and the other was struggling to come to terms with a change in height that defied every law of nature he had ever known.

It hadn’t even been ten to fifteen minutes since he had placed her in the tea, and she had nearly doubled in size.

How was that even possible?

Would his own height increase if he took a dip in the tea as well?

Aaron was fighting the very strong urge to ask the Empress whether she had an entire pool of this magnificent tea sitting somewhere in her backyard, because a change this dramatic, this abrupt, was nothing short of absurd.

When in doubt, ask the genius.

He glanced quickly at the Empress and silently pointed at the hugging koala clinging to his forearm.

Her lips curled into a beautiful, heart-stealing smile. "Mushfolks are quite mysterious creatures — some of the most unique ones I have ever created, honestly. They have tremendous potential, but in my world, only I am capable of giving them the means to reach it."

He understood the unspoken implication layered beneath her words.

She was simply too lazy to bother helping them unlock their full potential.

Though even with that piece of information in hand, he still could not begin to understand how his tiny, thoroughly bullyable Alyssa had grown to the size of a small puppy so effortlessly.

As if on cue, the Empress’s words yanked Alyssa’s attention away from Aaron against her will. Her tiny mushroom ears perked upright and she turned shakily to look at the Empress.

Then, lo and behold, Alyssa’s eyes shot wide open.

She was gazing at the mysterious, god-like figure that had presided over their entire lives — the Empress of Serenity, sitting directly opposite her, in flesh and blood, calmly drinking tea.

Alyssa had been granted the privilege of seeing the Empress only once before in her life, when she had been a tiny little girl cradled in Melissa’s arms, brought along to the grand feast. Even then, the Empress had remained far removed from the mushfolks’ clamoring, frantic reaches — distant from the manic adoration of her fans. She had been a figure that appeared utterly untouchable, wholly divine. A woman Alyssa had never been able to forget.

After that day, the only other time she had caught a glimpse of her was when the foolish Venom Elder — Melissa, in other words — had summoned the Empress using a priceless treasure that was meant to be kept sealed away for only the most earth-shattering of emergencies.

And yet, that woman had spent it simply because she did not want Aaron slipping free from her clutches.

Her excuses about the four tribes? Laughable. With just the combined farms of the Venom and Stealth Tribes, no other tribe would have stood a chance of catching up in the gold shroom count. Melissa placing a bounty on five tribes at once had nothing to do with caution or strategy. It had everything to do with erasing the competition entirely, and then neatly piling all the blame onto Aaron.

Alas, the plan had collapsed spectacularly.

Even so, Alyssa had always believed that the whole mess could have been resolved without ever needing to drag the Empress into it.

But in a strange, roundabout way, she was glad it hadn’t ended so cleanly. If it had, she would have been shipped right back to that tribe — back to enduring the endless taunts about how her little sister outshone her in every conceivable way, and how Alyssa herself was nothing more than a wasted gold shroom. That she ought to be disposed of without a second thought. Like a plague. Like something rotten that had no business taking up space.

She never would have met the Empress either.

"EMPRESS?!" Alyssa shrieked at the absolute top of her lungs.

She released Aaron’s forearm in an instant, scrambled down his thighs, and dropped into a bow at a perfect ninety degrees.

"IT’S SUCH AN HONOUR TO MEET YOU IN PERSON!" she screamed, her legs shifting her weight back and forth on Aaron’s thighs as she stared up at the Empress with stars blazing in her eyes.

"Calm down, child." The Empress gave a simple, composed nod paired with a polite smile, before sliding a sideways glance toward Aaron.

The look said everything without saying anything at all — this is exactly why I grew bored of mushfolks. So insufferably formal.

Aaron laughed, half in amusement and half in genuine surprise at how instantaneously the heavy, uncomfortable silence had shattered into pure chaos.

But somehow, he found he preferred the chaos. It sat easier with him. It made the tension in his shoulders loosen in a way that the silence never had.

And Alyssa, for all her dramatics, had not forgotten about Aaron either. She spun swiftly on his thigh and tilted her head all the way back to meet his eyes, her face bright with barely-contained delight.

"Sir Aaron! Do you SEE?! The Empress is here! I can’t believe it! Where are we — are we at the Empress’s home?!"

Aaron laughed. "I know, little girl. I have been speaking with the Empress for quite some time now. We are friends," he said, in a tone dripping with haughtiness.

The Empress let out a quiet, amused hum but neither confirmed nor denied his words, which made Alyssa’s eyes grow even wider — if that was physically possible.

"WAIT, WHAT?!" She let out a strangled shriek of disbelief, stumbling off his thigh and scrambling onto the handrail of his chair.

It was obvious she was still struggling to adjust to her new size. It wasn’t every day, after all, that a person woke up to find themselves having doubled in height overnight. It was disorienting, it was absurd, and it was objectively ridiculous — but unfortunately for her, she could not spare a single thought for it, because her overwhelmed little mind was already barely managing to process the avalanche of revelations about the Empress and Aaron.

"Y-You — I mean, Sir Aaron... I— I apologize for stepping on your body. Please forgive me. And as for the wrongdoings of my tribe, I swear I had no hand in any of it. Please, punish our elder — Melissa!" She pressed her hands together and twisted them anxiously as she stared at him with enormous, beseeching eyes.

She was standing atop the handrail of the hammock chair, which wasn’t doing her any favors. It swayed steadily back and forth, sending her scrambling for her footing more than once.

Aaron laughed at how earnest and deeply serious that apology sounded. His eyes drifted over to the Empress, who wore an expression of equal amusement and quiet curiosity.

He remembered clearly — Alyssa had been the first face he’d seen when he opened his eyes inside the Venom Tribe. She had also been the very one who had planted the idea in Melissa’s head to use him as a weapon against the other tribes.

And now here she stood, the very picture of wounded innocence.

Aaron stopped swinging the chair. His gaze slid sideways to the bucket, which was still barely a quarter full of tea. He quietly calculated the distance and the amount of force he would need, then gently raised his hand and patted the top of Alyssa’s mushroom cap.

She went completely rigid beneath his touch.

Whether it was comfort or shock that froze her, he neither knew nor particularly cared. He simply smiled at her. "Don’t you remember threatening not to tell me the directions to Drax?"

"NO! I will tell you now! I will even come with you! Please forgive me, Sir Aaron!" She lunged for his hand — or rather, his pinky — and wrapped both of hers around it, her eyes bright and shining with desperate sincerity.

"Really?" Aaron hummed.

"YES!!!" She nodded with the fervent, rapid energy of a hen pecking at grain.

"I don’t need you, though. My new friend will teleport me directly to the city of Drax." He shook his head, utterly unbothered.

"But — but I can come too! I’m nice! And I also saved your life!"

"Wow. Narcissistic much?"

"Noooo!"

While Alyssa was still mid-shriek, fervently protesting that accusation with everything she had, Aaron calmly withdrew his finger from her grip and gave her a bright, easy smile.

Before she could fully process what that smile meant, a thick blunt force connected squarely with her forehead.

The impact sent her tumbling clean off the handrail, and suddenly she was airborne — arms wheeling, legs kicking, nothing but open air beneath her feet.

Her protests dissolved into screams as she begged, loudly and desperately, for someone to save her. Neither Aaron nor the Empress moved a single muscle. They were far too entertained watching her flail magnificently through the air as she plummeted toward the bucket.

"HEL— Blrrrb."

With a resounding splash, Alyssa disappeared beneath the surface of the tea.